


Have We Been Boyfriends This Whole Time?

by rhysiana



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (I know; I'm sorry), Feelings Realization, Friends With Benefits To Lovers, M/M, No Smut, Sharing a Bed, oblivious idiots, post-Samwell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 05:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14730722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: Post-college socializing is harder to organize than Ransom expected. Fortunately, his best bro is there for him. In every way.





	Have We Been Boyfriends This Whole Time?

**Author's Note:**

> A little Holsom thing originally posted on [Tumblr](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com/post/172401319573/have-we-been-boyfriends-this-whole-time) after playing with a prompt generator that gave me: Hotel, Friends with benefits, Falling asleep on the other

To be honest, Ransom had expected more free time in his post-college life. Like, he’d decided not to go straight into med school, right? Taking a breather with this consultancy gig. After the intensity of Samwell, where he was balancing classes and kegsters and hockey, _with finesse_ (mostly), this should be easy.

And it is, kinda. It’s not like the work is hard. But it turns out being an adult just kinda blows, because a regular 9-5 is oddly draining and everyone just wants to go home, and organizing people to actually get together when you have to coordinate people from all over Boston instead of a single college campus is defeating even his spreadsheet prowess, because there are just so many more personal life factors to keep track of for all these people now. If they don’t start getting their shit together, he might actually _give up_ , and Justin Oluransi does not give up on things he puts his mind to, goddammit.

But anyway, that’s how it starts. Because he’d wanted to go out that night, and he was lookin’ to wheel, and then everyone canceled at the last minute, and now he was lying flat on the couch with one leg hanging off, listening to an old kegster playlist and staring at the ceiling.

Holster held a beer over his face until he reached up to take it. “Bro,” he remarked, and Ransom detected a hint of censure.

Ransom sighed from the depths of his soul. “But I’m so horny,” he whined, and then toasted the ceiling before taking a sip. The ceiling never canceled on him.

Holster sprawled in the armchair and toasted him back. “I hear that.” Then he looked at Ransom with a distinctly speculative glance. “You know, we never cancel on each other.”

“’zackly. ’Cuz we’re the best.”

“Right, so if we can only count on each other, we can help each other out for this, too.”

Ransom levered himself up on his elbows and squinted across the living room at Holster. “Are you serious?”

“Sure. Why not?”

And Ransom couldn’t honestly think of any reason not to, so they did.

***

It’s now several months later, and having a FWB arrangement with Holster is working out so ’swawesome, he’s really not sure why they didn’t start sooner. Probably because they’d been spoiled for choice at Samwell without even realizing it, although he refuses to become one of those guys who looks back constantly at college as the glory days gone by. Because honestly? Life is pretty great now that he’s not trying to Excel his way through making office life the same as college. He and Holster haven’t gone out for intentional partying in, like, over a month and he hasn’t even cared. See? ’Swawesome. Super convenient. _Efficient_.

And now they’ve been sent to a conference together. The company cheaped out and put them in the same room and everything, not that they care. Ransom flops back on one of the beds and digs his phone out to search for restaurant reviews.

“What do you wanna do tonight?” he asks Holster, who’s hanging his suit jacket up in a display of adult responsibility Ransom probably shouldn’t find so weirdly hot.

Holster shrugs. “It’s cold as shit out there, man.”

“You’re from Buffalo!”

“Windchill is a thing, Ransom! Turns out Chicago ain’t called the Windy City for nothing.”

“Big baby.”

Holster flops down on the bed next to him, face pillowed in his arms. “I’ll do whatever, I don’t care. Just as long as we don’t have to listen to another marketing report.”

Ransom lets his phone fall to his chest and looks over, then pokes Holster in the shoulder. “Hey. You’re squishing your glasses into your face. Gimme.”

Holster raises his head just far enough to pull off his glasses and hands them over before letting his head fall back down with a groan.

“We could just get room service,” Ransom says.

“Yesssss.”

Ransom grins and rolls over to order for both of them.

Three hours later, the tray is back outside their door, they’re in their pajamas, and Holster has used his weird TV mojo to find a movie marathon they both actually care about. Ransom is propped up against the headboard with all six of the pillows that were on the bed for mysterious interior design reasons that make no sense to him, while Holster has somehow slumped his 6′4″ body over so his head is in Ransom’s lap to get skritched. He’s still not wearing his glasses, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s been reciting all the lines along with the characters from memory. Ransom’s not entirely sure he even has his eyes open.

Holster’s last line comes out mumbled and Ransom pets his hair again, which gets him a sigh that kind of edges into a snore at the end. He grins and reaches out to turn the light off, pausing when he notices the second bed on the other side of the nightstand. It’s still pristine, fluffy white duvet entirely undented.

Slowly he pulls the chain on the light, using only the flickering light of the TV to rearrange the pillows and maneuver Holster around until Ransom can scootch down next to him. Holster’s arm drapes over him naturally, even in sleep, and Ransom isn’t sure how long he lies there, staring blankly at the TV, but by the time he blinks back to awareness of his surroundings, it’s playing an entirely different movie. He switches it off and lies awake in the darkness for a while longer, listening to Holster breathe next to him, wondering when that became so normal. When it became so _comfortable_. Sleep pulls him under before he can decide what exactly that means.

***

He wakes up the next morning to Holster placing a bagel and can of juice in front of his face on the nightstand.

“’Sup, Sleeping Beauty?” Holster grins down at him fondly.

Ransom just blinks up at him. “Hey, Holtzy? How long have we been dating?”

Holster blinks at him in turn. “What?”

Ransom just gestures at them and the beds and… everything. “I think… I think we might have crossed from friends with benefits into just being boyfriends without noticing.”

Holster glances behind him guiltily. “Um.” Ransom peers past him to see that Holster has actually laid out his clothes for him on the side chair. “I think you might be right.”

“You good with that?” Ransom asks tentatively.

Holster responds with one of his rare truly happy smiles. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”

“’Swawesome.” And then Ransom yanks him down into a kiss by his stupid grown-up tie and they miss the first marketing report for the day.


End file.
